Google announced that the company is acquiring the smartwatch technology of the fashion and accessory group, Fossil, for US$40 million. The tech giant intends to expand in the growing wearable tech market. This acquisition of the intellectual property for Fossil smartwatches will allow the company to create its own branded smartwatches to compete against competitors like Apple, Fitbit, and others in the wearable tech space.
Having built the Wear OS platform for smartwatches also provides an opportunity for both companies to have a closer collaboration than before.
The smartwatch industry continues to be dominated by Apple, and top competitors like Fitbit and Samsung which have opted to go different directions, supporting the Pebble-based Fitbit OS and Tizen, respectively. These have left Google struggling to differentiate itself and its partners’ offerings. Fossil’s team, on the other hand, certainly has the know-how to build solid watch hardware, so this could prove a solid match. In fact, Fossil has remained a rare constant, developing reasonably-priced, fitness-focused products sporting the Wear OS software.
